


Putting The Romance In

by Fair_Feather_Friend



Category: Original Work
Genre: Asexual Character, Banter, Dragons, Fantasy, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Magic, Performed Heterosexuality, Sacrifice, Virginity, evil overlord
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:20:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29279856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fair_Feather_Friend/pseuds/Fair_Feather_Friend
Summary: With his 40th Birthday soon approaching, The King is determined that he'll overcome the curse that's left him unable to know the loving touch of a woman. After a comedy of errors, involving the King's heterosexual romantic pursuits,  his most loyal knight, Sir Gallain, is going to have to take matters into his own hands."Help!"The King's shriek echoed through the hallways. Sir Gallain who had been waiting at the bedroom door, for just this moment, kicked the door in, sword in hand. Only to be confronted by the completely unexpected. The King was with a woman!
Relationships: Forty-Year-Old Virgin King/His Male Knight Who Wants to Gently Deflower Him (OW), Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 11
Kudos: 28
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	1. Romance and the Single Ruler

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mixtapestar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mixtapestar/gifts).



**\- One -**

"Help!"

The King's shriek echoed through the hallways. Sir Gallain who had been waiting at the door, for just this moment, kicked the door in, sword in hand. Only to be confronted by the completely unexpected.

"Spider!" the King cried, looking more distressed than in the throes of passion for all his state of undress.

The Lady on the bed with the King could have been called many things, spiderish wasn't one of them, and Gallain was sure that wasn't her name.

The King pointed dramatically at the rose-petal strewn sheets. There within was indeed a spider, small and harmless as spiders were usually apt to be. Gallain sighed. "I'll get a glass shall I?"

The Lady, looking thoroughly irritated by the whole ordeal tried to smack the spider.

"Don't hurt it!" The King protested.

No time for a glass, Gallain dove forward, blocking her second blow, trying to scoop up the tiny creature in his bare hands.  
"Get out!" The King yelled at the woman. "Out! You didn't have to try and kill it. Is it okay?"

"All eight legs still intact," Gallain hoped. He'd no idea where the spider had went, definitely not in his hands and hopefully not running up his arm. "Although perhaps next time, have the roses inspected for spiders before you throw them on the bed."

"I was trying to be romantic! I remembered to remove the thorns this time. I remembered to ensure the flowers weren't poisonous!"

"That's progress at least."

"Being romantic is hard."

The woman stood, looking irritated. "You still have to pay me."

"But we didn't even do anything!" The King complained.

"Speak to the Chamberlain," Gallain interrupted, trying to usher her out of the door. "She deals with everything treasury related."

"I should have listened to the others," The woman muttered on her way out. "King or not, he's cursed."

"I'm cursed!" The King wailed, mopping his brow melodramatically. "I will never know the gentle touch of a loving woman. Even when I offer to pay them something always happens to ruin everything."

"There's plenty more fish in the sea," Gallain replied.

The King's misery quickly abated. "What a fantastic idea! Let's find a mermaid! They're all female, surely at least one will want for the love of a man."

"I don't think that's a good idea. They are known for luring men to them, through the beauty of their song and then drowning them."

"Not all mermaids!"

"The Kingdom's landlocked."

"I can fix that."

Gallain didn't even want to ask how. "They have fish tails."

"And?"

"Let's go to the library and read the books on fish reproduction, shall we? I'm sure they'll explain the incompatibility issue." The King was less than enthused about the idea but he trailed after Gallain regardless. Sometimes it was important to humour the knight's weird book fetish.

Several hours passed in the library.

"This is so boring," The King complained.

"Now imagine how much more boring it will be with a mermaid."

"Okay, no mermaids and no more books."

\---

**\- Two -**

"You can't just go kidnapping women," Gallain complained.

"I just proved that I can." The King replied, proudly.

"You shouldn't."

"Why?"

Gallain took a deep breath, biting back his initial response. "Consent. Remember that time that Mesmera had the entire castle under her spell and made you do things you didn't want to?"

"Don't remind me." The King shuddered at the memory. "She had me dressed in orange and green. It was hideous, but she made me like it. I looked like a marigold! It had ruffles!"

"Yes, like that."

"But Princesses get captured all the time. It's part of their job description. It's a compliment. It would be an insult not to capture her."

"Kidnapping is not a compliment."

"I beg to differ."

"You don't just take women on their wedding day though."

"Why not? It saves on all the planning and the dress, and it's the heroic thing to do. He was clearly a villain. He was wearing black. People were crying!"

"That's standard wedding process."

"Majesty. Sire." One of the guards barged into the room. "The Princess has escaped. Should we go after her?"

"No, no, let her go. Sir Gallain says there's to be no more kidnapping Princesses." The King sighed.

"Did she hurt anyone on the way out?" Gallain asked.

"No, Sir," The Guard replied. "We know not to engage with escaped prisoners. 'Our lives are valuable. We are not expendable.' Besides she didn't escape through the door, she went out the window. It seems someone accidentally left a magic carpet in the tower."

"I can't imagine how that happened." Gallain lied.

\---

**\- Three -**

"HELP!!!!"

Sir Gallain burst into the room to find a tentacled monstrosity pinning the King to the bed, limbs flailing everywhere, a large sucker stuck on his head.

"Help!" The King cried.

"Let him go or I start lopping limbs."

The monster roared its defiance. Sir Gallain charged forwards, smacking the creature with the flat of his blade, trying to avoid maiming the King.

"I said get off him!"

Tentacles grasped for Gallain, so he twisted the blade, slicing through the suckered appendages, green ichor spurting everywhere as the creature wailed.

"Get out!" The tentacle began to grow back... Gallain's eyes darted around the room and he dove for the glow-orb. It wasn't fire but it'd have to do. He pitched it as hard as he could at the creature. The glass shattered, and the fire inside spurted out, setting the creature aflame. It screamed in agony, diving through the thankfully open window and splashing into the moat below.

The King tumbled off the bed, tangled in sheets, trying to escape the flames. Covered in ichor, glass, and in a state of semi-clad disarray.

"You ruined my bed!" The King protested. "Look at the mess! Ewww it's in my hair. I need a bath!"

Gallain sighed. Sounds from outside suggested that the guards were already in the process of arresting her, and the servitors, ever attentive to the King's whims, would be working on the bath. Everything running as efficient as ever.

"And I need a magic sword."

"Later. Bath first. Tentacles! She had tentacles! Not that I have anything against tentacles in a consentacle relationship and all but she could have warned me first." The King ignored the flames as Sir Gallain threw the contents of the water-pitcher over a blanket and then tried to smother the fire. 

"I think warning you may have interfered with the whole egg-laying plan."

"She was a Brainsucker not an Egglayer. Completely different species. It was rude! One minute she was all voluptuous curves and then BAM tentacles!." The King swanned over to check his reflection. "She messed up my hair! My beautiful hair! Ewww..." he rubbed at the suckermark her tentacle had left on his forehead. "Those were not the sexy kind of tentacles."

"A little help with this fire, please." Sir Gallain asked as the flame began to eat through the blanket.

The King didn't even look away from the mirror, concerned far more by his appearance. "I'm cursed! I'm so ugly! No woman's going to love me like this."

"The fire! Help me put out the fire!"

"Can't. That's eternal flame, it doesn't go out. That's the reason it's trapped in the glow-orbs."

"So it's going to burn forever?"

"Yes. I did say you ruined my bed."

Sir Gallain grabbed the King's crystal wash basin, in one hand, and then snatched his hand mirror from him, much to the King's protests, and set about containing the fire. 

"That's my favourite mirror," The King grouched. He made a fancy gesture with his fingers and suddenly the shards of glass spun into the air, a whirling dervish that enveloped the flame and contained it once more in a crackled orb. "Happy?"

"Ecstatic." 

\---


	2. Twenty Years Previously

**Twenty Years Previously:**  
It had seemed a good idea at the time, as many things did.

Ride up to Castle Dreadmoon! Challenge the Evil Necromancer to a duel. Free the captive Princess (if there was one? sources were still hazy about that.) Welcome in a new era of peace and love to the land! What could possibly go wrong? 

A lot as it turns out, least of all being his horse finding love with a flirty pegasus. Never mind, Gai had feet, he had determination, he had a decent sense of direction, he could walk. It couldn't be that difficult to find a pitch black castle, perched atop a cliff, with giant storm clouds hanging atop. 

Gai was beginning to have second thoughts about trying to impress Sir Handsome the Hot Hero by actually going on a quest and not just lying about it like some other heroes might. Not that he wasn't enjoying himself, but Sir Handsy had disappeared several towns ago, and Gai was still set upon seeing this through. 

At least Smoggy hadn't left him. The baby dragon was having the time of its life with all the new sights and smells and nasty things to roll in! And that made everything else worth it.

It had been days... weeks? of travel when Gai stepped into the clearing and encountered The Slime! None of the heroes had regaled him with epic tales of fighting slimes, that was just sort of implied that they did it. Slime was gross... disgusting... and Gai really wanted to be reaching for a handkerchief not a weapon. 

Smoggy's tail started thwapping excitedly. "No Smoggy!" Not for the first time Gai wished he'd put a collar on the dragon if just so he had something to grasp onto while Smoggy charged forward into danger. 

Gai lunged after Smoggy, just as the dragon slid to a stop, chirping. Gai slammed into its solid side. The slime... slimed slimeily paying them no heed. 

If he was a real hero then this is when Gai would have drawn his sword. If he'd had a sword. Swords were expensive! He had a sling that he was a dab hand with but slinging stones into a slime seemed rather pointless. And it still hadn't made a move to attack. Smoggy play-bowed, the slime ignored him, and wait, no, Smoggy hadn't been looking at the slime at all. Suddenly there was a flash of light, a puff of smoke, and the most beautiful creature Gai had ever seen appeared on the very far side of the clearing.

Fey, probably. Great. 

Smoggy immediately charged forward.

"Smoggy no!" Gai cried.

When set upon by a wall of muscular baby dragon, usually there was shrieking, or running away, or by those more experienced in all things draconic disgusted comments about Smoggy's gnarled skin and stumpy wings. Gai loved Smoggy, but those who felt likewise were few and far between.

The stranger was pristine perfection. Ethereal, glowing, golden-skinned and midnight haired. If he(?) was human he'd have been considered short, and delicate but with his pointed ears, curling horns, and cute fangs he was very much not. Demon? Maybe. The stranger laughed as he patted the boisterous dragon on the head and said, "you're such a good boy, aren't you?"

And he was. Smoggy was, and he was so very, very happy to have that acknowledged. The baby dragon drooled, tail thwapping harder, stubby wings flapping with excitement. Gai couldn't help but smile. "Seems like you've made a friend."

"Friend?" the stranger asked, and then his smile was absolutely radiant. "You're not going to hurt the slime, are you?" he asked almost as an afterthought.

"Uh, no, why would I do that?" 

"I don't know. People like coming here and hurting them. It doesn't seem fair. It's their home."

"I wasn't going to. It didn't seem like it was going to hurt me or Smoggy."

"Good. Do you want to come for dinner?"

"As a guest or a course?"

The stranger laughed. "You're funny. It's rude to eat guests. Unless they break the rules."

"Ah. I'm actually on a quest," Gai said. 

"Of course you are." The Stranger smiled. "What sort of quest? Did you forget your sword, and your shiny armour, and..."

"Yes, yes," Gai smiled. "I don't need any of that. I have Smoggy. I was looking for Castle Dreadmoon to..."

"OH!" The Stranger smiled brilliantly. "I live there! You're going to have to come for dinner now."

\- - 

Castle Dreadmoon was everything the stories said it would be. Perched atop a cliff, surrounded in shadows, and gloomy clouds. The architecture ominous and foreboding. 

When they arrived, they were greeted, not by an evil necromancer but by a beautiful Queen. With ivory skin, ebon hair and lips as red as blood she cut a striking figure. Tall, elegant, and curved in all the right places. But Gai had grown up in the Dragonhold where each dragonrider was stronger and more beautiful than the last. Perhaps, if he'd been a different sort of man he'd have been spellbound by those enticing curves, melodic voice, and the ample cleavage she had on display. But it did nothing for him. Nor did the glowing red pendant around her neck that was obviously enchanted. 

"On the behalf of all of Castle Redmoon I welcome you. Please, make yourself at home. You will want a bath before you join us for dinner. Boy, see to it that the servitors draw one, and put out a clean set of clothing."

And with that said she swept dramatically out of the hallway. 

-

Castle Dreadmoon was strange. Other than masked servants that moved silently throughout the castle Gai had seen no signs of any other life. No courtiers. No footmen and soldiers. Not even any dogs. There was none of the usual hustle and bustle he'd have expected of a castle this size.

Dinner was not the ostentatious feast Gai had imagined, but instead a quiet, intimate affair between the three of them, Smoggy having decided to take a nap after he'd been scrubbed clean and stuffed himself full of soap and other cosmetics. If past experience was anything to go by, he'd be hiccupping bubbles for days. 

"It's so wonderful to have visitors," The Queen enthused. "Please, you must tell us of your journeys and all the news of the outside world."

The food looked... interesting. There was a still sizzling haunch of meat, skin crisp, juices dripping. An assortment of other fleshy delicacies laid out on platters. 

The stranger that had brought him here sat sullenly, ignoring the fancy food in favour of slopping some mush from a pot into a bowl in front of him. "Mother." 

Mother? If there was any family resemblance between them it wasn't obvious. He was short and strange. She was tall and looked oh so obviously human, which may have been a glamour, some form of illusion magic, or perhaps even shapeshifting. Gai should have known better than to judge anyone by appearances. 

"Oh, the Boy is right. Please, you must eat first. Help yourself to..."

"Porridge. You'll want the porridge." The Boy interrupted thrusting the bowl of slop towards Gai, before dishing himself up a second bowl. 

"Boy, mind your manners. We do not feed guests gruel. A growing hero like him surely needs meat to sustain himself. The Cook's prepared something especially for him."

"No." The Boy said. "He's my guest. Your guests eat your food. My guests eat mine."

Gai smiled fakely. "Gruel sounds absolutely delicious. It's my favourite." 

The porridge was bland but he'd eaten worse. It almost felt like being back at the Dragonhold, with the beautiful Queen heartily devouring roasted beast, washed down with jewelbright wine, while he ate slop and drank water. 

What wasn't like Dragonhold was the way she smiled at him, the casual touches, the laughter at his jokes. The Boy glared throughout. Gai spent most of the meal fending off her advances and ignoring the way her neckline seemed to sink lower and lower. Still he didn't see any overt signs of evil, unless loneliness was a crime, and it seemed rather rude to announce his intention to kill his host, based solely on a whole lot of rumours from the nearby Kingdom. 

"Boy, aren't you getting tired?"

"No." 

"Are you sure," The Queen asked. "You've had a busy day. Go to bed, leave us adults to discuss..."

Gai stood up, yawning. "Great idea. Sleep. I should be getting back to the room. Thanks for the meal it's been wonderful." Evil or not Gai did not want to be left alone with a man-hungry seductress. 

The Boy rose to his feet as well. "I'll show you back. It's easy to get lost."

The moment they were back in his room Gai asked. "What was that all about?"

"I don't understand."

"Your mother was very, friendly."

"She's like that."

"Where are all the people?"

The Boy shrugged. 

"She's your mother?"

"Yes."

"Which makes you The Prince?"

"I suppose. I didn't think she'd want to speak to you."

"So why did you invite me to dinner?"

"I was lonely. I thought maybe with my birthday being so soon she'd let me have a friend. The last friend I tried to make Mother had for dinner. She always has our guests for dinner."

"She eats them?" That was evil. If he could find evidence then he'd have reason to overthrow her. 

"Only my chicken friend. Animals can't be friends, she said." 

Smoggy grumbled a disagreement. 

"You had a chicken as a friend and she ate it?"

"Yes. She did offer me some." The Boy looked so sad. 

That was cruel but eating chicken wasn't evil. "Do you have a name?" Gai asked..

"No."

"It's just Boy?"

The Boy nodded.

"Would you like one?"

"Yes!"

"Okay." Gai thought for a moment. "Pip. Pippin. Phillip Ignatious Parsival."

The Boy's eyes widened. "Mine?"

"Yes. I dub thee, Pip Pippin Phillip Ignatious Parsival the First."

Pip stared intensely. "Thank you. Mine. I'm Pip Pippin Phillip Ignatious Parsival."

"You're welcome, Pip." Gai smiled.

"What are you called?"

"Gai."

"Guy? That's like being Boy. Do you want a name?"

"No thanks. That's just my common name, like Pip is yours now. I'm Sir Gallain, Dragon Knight extraordinaire. And that's Smoggy." Gallain gestured to the snoring dragon. "Although his fancy name is Sugilite. Shuggy."

"He is a noble friend."

"He is. So, do you want to talk about what's going on around here, yet?" 

"I can't."

"Don't want to? Or physically can't?"

Pip shrugged.

"It's your birthday soon?"

"On the blood moon. Two days from now. And my death day too." 

"Your death day?"

Pip nodded, smiling far too bright. "Yes. It's the day I'm going to fulfill my destiny and be sacrificed to bring prosperity to the entire Kingdom."

"Symbolic sacrifice or real?"

"They're all real. But this one is really real. There'll be blood and chanting and everything. I just have to do the easy bit, and sit there and not scream too loud."

"And you're okay with this?" Gallain asked.

"Yes. It's what I was born for."

"Your mother's doing the sacrificing?"

"Yes! It's very kind of her."

"Why don't you stop her? Or we could run away? Or..."

"I can't. It's fated. It's my destiny."

"Right. I don't suppose you have a copy of this ritual do you?"

"There's one in the library, but it's really boring in there."

"Lead the way," Gallain asked. 

"You're not planning to interfere are you?"

"Wouldn't dream of it."

-

Gallain tried, several times to talk Pip out of the whole willing sacrifice thing, but to no avail. Pip was every bit as stubborn as Smoggy could be. 

Gallain tried to speak to the Queen but she just brushed off his concerns and offered him a dubiously coloured drink and Gallain started to worry that if he spent too much time around her she might start getting insistent that he drink something. 

Every time Gallain suggested disrupting things before the ritual was to take place Pip told him not to, insisted it was extremely important the ritual took place.

So Gallain studied the ritual, all the intricacies of it, and discovered, what he knew already, was that he didn't have the slightest aptitude for magic.

"It says you have to be family, if you renounce her..."

"No." Pip said.

"And you need to be a virgin."

"I am. Pure of body and mind. Linked by blood and borne of this land."

"We could fix that."

"It's not broken."

"We could just leave," Gallain suggested.

"No. This is my destiny. I have to be there. The ritual has to take place."

"Why?"

"Because it's a magical nexus that happens once every hundred years. The stars align, the moon is red, and the stone will run with blood."

"But why?"

"You're a dragonknight. You knew from when you were born that you would bond with a dragon, did you not? That you would travel and perform great deeds. It was what you were raised for and trained for." 

"Actually..."

Pip ignored him and kept speaking. "Well I was raised for this ritual. It's my entire purpose."

"I don't want you to die." Gallain admitted.

"It will be okay. I'm not scared of dying. It will all work out. Just don't interfere."

Gallain didn't listen. He made his own plans.

All things considered stopping the sacrifice was easy. He and Smoggy just strode through the ample wards, and preventative barriers like knives through melted butter and found their way atop the tallest tower. The clouds were heavy, the moon was red, the Queen stood chanting, holding a strange dagger, and Pip sat on the altar, shivering, wearing sacrificial white. 

It should have been epic. It wasn't. 

Gallain charged forwards to grab the knife, she muttered a single word and her spell fizzled, as ineffective as the rest of the magic at containing Gallain. Gallain wrenched the knife from her hands, she struggled, and then there was blood, so much blood, and in that moment the magic shifted. 

Pip grasped with both hands, dragging all the magic into himself, and he kept pulling, and pulling, and The Queen kept screaming, and Gallain tried to wrench the dagger away, and there was blood everywhere, and The Queen eventually crumpled to the ground, a withered husk. 

Gallain dropped the knife to the ground, shuddering. She was dead and the real monster was...

Pip was soaked in blood, not his own, and had horns and fangs and the magic was thick, overwhelming as it all converged upon him and he just absorbed it. 

"Pip?"

Pip's eyes snapped open and met his own, there was a wild feralness there, but the name anchored it.

"Pip. Pippin. Phillip Ignatious Parsival. You called me friend and I called you."

"Yesss."

"You could have just told me you wanted to use the ritual to drain her power for yourself."

Pip started coming back to himself, less eldritch monster, more the strange boy that was in need of a friend. He shook his head. "Couldn't. I was bound to be unable to harm her in any way. If you hadn't killed her I couldn't have done anything."

Gallain shuddered. He'd killed her. He'd planned to and he had and... "what are you going to do with all the magic?"

"I'm going to make things better." Pip smiled. "I'll bring her back."

"What? From the dead?"

"Yes. She'll be a lot nicer now."

Gallain shuddered again. "Ah, let's not? We should burn her instead."

"Okay." Pip kept smiling. "Should we wake up all the people now?" 

"What people?"

"All the heroes that visited. They're in the dungeon." 

"Dead?"

"No. Just magic sleep. It's a good thing you didn't eat the food, drink her wine or get too close. She'd have enchanted you too."

"I don't think she could," Gallain admitted. Ever since he'd saved Smoggy magic had a tendency to slide off him. "We should probably clean up before waking everyone. Don't want to scare them."

"Okay. Just tell me when you're ready and I'll lift the spell and you can do the talky talking thing with them and let them know what happened."

"And they're all going to think I saved them."

"You did save them."

Gallain knew his life was never going to be the same again.


	3. Virgins

"So, are you going to tell me what's up?" Gallain asked the King.

"That way," The King gestured with a mirror in hand.

"And what's wrong?"

"I'm going to be 40 next month. I'm going grey. I'm getting old! And fat. And wrinkly! My time is running out." The King wailed into the hand-mirror.

Only one of those things was even remotely true. The King was every bit as beautiful as he'd been when they were eighteen. Unlike Gallain, he didn't seem to have aged a day. If he was slightly plumper than he'd been, that was only because he'd been too thin before, and the softness suited him far better.

"I am not stroking your ego and telling you how beautiful you are, yet again."

The King's lip wobbled and he gazed, morosely into his mirror. No. Not his mirror. This one was more ornate.

"Is that the cursed mirror? Stop looking into it." The Knight approached, handkerchief in hand, which he draped over the mirror and then grabbed it. "You know it always lies."

"What if it always tells the truth and it's every other mirror that lies?"

Gallain stared at him for long moments. "I thought we'd stashed it away for good in the treasure room. Why did you dig it out again?"

"I was looking for a wedding gift for Sinistra Darkheart. I can't remember why I thought this was a good idea."

"That's genius," Galain said.

"It is?"

"A vampire who can't see her reflection, and a mirror that always lies. She'll love it. Or take offence and send one of her brood." Galain grinned bright at the prospect. "Maybe if we package it up with a silver stake she'll get really offended and send Romeo Nightsong."

"Ugh. Not him." The King complained. "He's the worst. It should be illegal to be that handsome. All the women love him and they never even look at anyone else when he's around. And he's never going to get old and grey and fat."

"Or eat a sunrise, or see strawberries again. The curse of vampires along with their sinful sexiness."

"Maybe I should become a vampire. Then I'll never grow old. Or have to get out of bed when the sun's out."

"It's not like you do that anyway, unless you want to" Gallain smiled. "No need to go full vamp to do so. I'll just package up the mirror will I? And you stop worrying about the relentless march of time." 

Gallain dealt with the mirror and then returned to the King.

"What's with the sudden interest in women and their affections?"

"It's not sudden."

"Twenty years we've known each other. I didn't think you were interested in anyone, at all. And then suddenly in these last few weeks you've been obsessed. Or at least acting like you think someone who's obsessed should. It's also not a compulsion or a spell. I thought it was just a game you were playing, but it's not, is it? "

The King mulled the question over, quietly. "I'll be a forty year old virgin."

"So? There's nothing wrong with being a virgin. Especially if you're not interested. Not everyone is."

"I want to be interested. I don't want to die without ever having known the most magical feeling of all. I don't want my mother's curse to dictate the rest of my life. I thought I'd have removed the curse by now. I'd have a wife who would be as wicked as she's wonderful, and we could have lots and lots of sex."

"Have you ever found anyone sexually attractive?"

"Yes. I know who's attractive, sexy, and all that."

"But desire? Lust?"

"I'm not broken. I still feel things. I'm not a monster."

"Pip, I know. You're sweet, kind, you care, I know you're not a monster. And even if you were, didn't we build this place to be a haven for all the monsters out there?" 

"Not all. Just the ones we like."

"Yeah, not all. If it's a wife you want then I'll help you find one.The proper way without kidnapping, and we'll find one perfect for you, once we work out exactly what you do want. We can throw a ball, or start a quest, or go to a fortune-telling matchmaker." 

"That will take time."

"You've managed for almost forty years, what's another few weeks?"

"I want to have sex before my birthday. We don't have time."

"Okay let's do it, here now." Gallain flashed a grin. He pulled off his tunic, and flung it across the room where it landed on one of the decorative spikes. Not the first time he'd stood in the throne room, half-dressed. He posed in a way he hoped was sexily, flexing his muscles. His own hair might be starting to grey, but he was still fit. 

"Gallain!" The King scolded. "What are you doing?"

"Get naked. Let's break the curse."

"I know you're a virgin too," The King said. "But that's not how it works."

"Really?" Galain said. "Who said I was a virgin?"

"You're a Knight. They have to remain virgins."

"Where did you get that idea?"

-

**Many Years Ago ******

********

********

Sir Innocenzio had been every bit the perfect knight. Muscles upon muscles, gleaming silver armour, riding atop a powerful unicorn destrier, and then they'd done a different sort of riding. Kind of. Gallain had been left disappointed in more ways than one.

"I don't get it. If I suck you off, you're still a virgin. But if you do it to me, you're somehow impure?"

"I do not make the rules," Sir Innocenzio had replied, sated from Gallain's attentions. 

"You could at least lend me a hand."

"That too would be against the code."

"Really? I can use my mouth and hands on you, and you remain pure. But you can't do anything in return."

"You enjoyed doing what you did. It is an honour to serve me in such a way."

"Not the point."

"Now, as I was saying, before we got distracted. You could overthrow the Evil King and claim the throne as your own, wiping evil from the land," Sir Innocenzio tried to change the subject.

"I could," Gallain concedes. "But why would I? And even if I did why would I want to do so with you? Besides calling him evil is rather harsh, don't you think."

"He rules a kingdom of monsters."

"That's harsher. Doesn't humanity often seem the monsters the way they ostracise those that appear different and less pleasing. The way they push other races from their lands claiming them as their own?"

"I had thought you would stand with me. Tomorrow I shall challenge him, and free the land of his evil once and for all."

Gallain knew better than to argue with a hero. It was always a pointless endeavour. 

-

"Fashion!" The King had said immediately, to everyone's bafflement. "I choose fashion as my weapon."

"You cannot choose fashion," Sir Innocenzio, forever a stickler for rules no one had ever heard of declared. "It is not a weapon. You must choose a weapon and face me man to man, with no magic."

"Haven't you ever heard of dressed to kill?" The King asked. "Fashion is a weapon in the right hands, but I suppose you'd know nothing about that. Okay. I choose Sir Gallain. My champion. My weapon."

Sir Innocenzio had been raised in the order of unicorns, wielding a sword from a young age. He was fast. He was strong. He was every bit the perfect knight. He was a head taller than Gallain, a wall of muscle, and he lived and breathed the sword. Gallain had sparred with him countless times, and picked up tricks he had never even known existed, but when it came to a proper fight he knew when he was outmatched and outclassed. 

But they hadn't chosen weapons, at least not yet.

"Smoggy," Gallain called the dragon bounding over at the sound of his name. With the gnarly dragon at his side he approached, not the knight, but the unicorn. 

Said unicorn was breath-taking, every bit as perfect as the Knight it was partnered to. Large, muscular, powerful, with a horn dangerous enough to impale any of its foes..

Gallain bowed to the unicorn. "Glorious Silverhoof. It is a great honour to be in your presence, as unworthy as I am. This is Sugilite of the Smog, affectionately known as Smoggy. I am his companion as Sir Innocenzio is yours. It would pain me to have to fight one as noble as you, protecting the pure, but if I must fight to defend my King I will do so. The King is an innocent, and is it not your role to protect innocents, regardless of what your companion says?"

The Unicorn looked over at the King, who was distracting Sir Innocenzio, arguing about rules or something. 

"I have another question for you though," Gallain continued. "I had wondered why you consider certain sex acts pure, and others impure. Is it true that..." And then Gallain regaled the paragon of purity with tales of his sexual exploits with Sir Innocenzio, asking for clarification on why each act did or did not count.

Smoggy stood beside him, adding his own little grumbles and snorts and Gallain had no idea what the dragon was saying but the unicorn didn't try to attack them, and that was all that mattered. 

Once they'd both finished their pieces, the unicorn did not vocalise a response. But the conversation solved matters, and Sir Innocenzio was too busy chasing after his former mount to bother about fighting anyone.

-

**Back to the present**

Sir Innocenzio was probably where the King's mistaken assumptions had come from, Gallain guessed.

"Why would you think that I'm a virgin? I'm a Dragon Knight, not Unicorn Knight. Completely different rules. So what about we fix that curse of yours?" He waggled his eyebrows ridiculously. "Hey, you're not laughing. You were meant to laugh. It's really bothering you?"

"Two men can't have sex."

Gallain laughed, suddenly. "Really? You walked in on me and Throrin more than once. What did you think we were doing?"

"I thought you were wrestling."

"Naked?"

"I don't know. Warriors are weird. Naked wrestling, trying to bite each other." He shrugged. 

"And Captain Flynn."

"Swordfighting lessons."

Gallain smirked. "Of a sort. And there was the Warchief I almost married. What did you think was going on there?"

"I thought you were friends. Really good friends. I was jealous."

"Twenty years Pip. Twenty years and you're saying you didn't realise I like men, intimately?"

"I don't know. I didn't think about it." But he did think about it right then. "OH! How could I not see you were in love with me all these years."

"I wasn't," Galain protested.

Pip was smiling now. "Pining away all the time I was completely oblivious, unaware that love was possible between men. There I was flouting my affairs with others, and you my most loyal Knight were forced to silently endure."

"I wasn't in love with you."

"Why not? It all makes sense now. You offered to serve as my guard to be close to me and perhaps finally I would realise your love! Refusing all others." 

"I didn't. No. I never saw you that way."

"Why else would you stay?"

"Because you're my best and truest friend. Because you always believed in me even when I didn't believe in myself. You've never doubted me. Because you're the single most kind-hearted person I know in a way that encompasses more than the narrow world that most people know. Because you're so strange and wonderful and like no one else I've ever known." Gallain came to a sinking realisation. "Fuck. I... fuck, fuck."

"Love you too," Pip said.

Gallain's stomach did a flip, and suddenly he wished he hadn't flung away his tunic. That he wasn't standing here half-naked and feeling more vulnerable than he had in a long time. 

"You want to help me remove the curse?" Pip asked.

Gallain's tongue tied itself in knots, but he nodded. Gallain moved closer to the King, to lean in and try and kiss him, only the King made a sudden move, and their heads collided in a bad way. 

"OW MAH NOSE!"

There was blood. So much blood and it was gushing everywhere. Sir Gallain, victor of more battles than he could count felled by a single failed kiss... Okay his nose wasn't broken. He didn't think. Just... he grabbed frantically for something...

Only to realise that the King had passed out. Wait no, he was just faking it, swooning like any damsel might. 

"So much blood," The King complained despite none of it being his. "Does that happen often?"

"Never."

"You're ruining my shirt."


	4. Putting the man in romance

Gallain had never actually desired the King, not like that. He liked warriors and muscles and sex, and he still wasn't certain Pip was at all interested in that, or ever would be.

But what he looked for in a relationship at forty was not what he'd been looking for at twenty. 

They didn't fall into bed and have lots of amazing sex, awakening a new-found lust for each other. And that was okay. Pip had flopped down on his bed, sprawled out like a cat taking up far more space than he ever physically could and demanded. "Sex now." 

Gallain laughed and joined him and they tried kissing for a bit but Pip wasn't getting into it at all. Oh he was trying but something wasn't clicking and he he ended up announcing, "kissing's weird. What's the point?"

"You're not the first guy I know not to like it," Gallain smiled. "I like kissing. If you're not into it, you're not into it and that's okay."

"I wasn't into mushrooms when I first tried them either, but..."

"You still hate them and don't think I don't see you pushing them off your plate. I see how it is, you think I'm a fun guy."

Pip laughed. 

"So now we know what you don't like, what do you like?" Gallain asked.

"Sex!" 

"Liar," Gallain teased. "Are you sure you're cursed and it wasn't just self-sabotage?"

"I didn't curse myself." A hint of offence creeped in to Pip's voice.

"Okay. Okay. So do you have any fantasies? Anything you've dreamed of."

Pip leaned in close to whisper 'sex' and Gallain laughed. "Of course."

"What about you?" Pip asked. "With your years of unrequited love for me, what nefarious things did you think of doing? How did you imagine corrupting me?"

"I didn't," Gallain protested yet again. 

"Liar. I'm sure you wanted to drag me into that library of yours and force me to read all the books."

"Actually. That sounds nice," Gallain admitted. 

"What a fiend you are. Books are boring."

"How'd you even become a magician without reading a bunch of spellbooks."

"I'm not a magician. I have a natural talent, a gift, I practice practically. The books are all wrong. And old. And boring."

"How would you even know?" Gallain kissed his cheek, fondly, and Pip smiled. "That was nice." And Gallain marked it down in his mental list. "So what do you fantasise about?"

"Being the fairest of them all!"

"You already are. But, you want to be told you're beautiful every day? To be cherished and appreciated and loved? Kissing is sometimes about that where every kiss is a 'I love you.' And sex is sometimes a reflection on that, the sharing of pleasure."

"Gallain, you're a romantic," Pip teased.

"Is it romance you're looking for, not sex? The grand love affair, the gestures of adoration? Wooing and being wooed?"

"They're different?"

"If you'd read a book for once you'd know."

"Okay. You can read a book to me. Just one. And in return you can also do al that other stuff. And we'll have all the sex."

"Sure."

They did not have all the sex. But it didn't matter, not really. They shared a bed and Pip was such a cuddler, and it was sweet, really. 

There was something about the about the quiet intimacy of leaning against each other as Gallain read out loud. It was not the flames of lust, but it was such warmth, such fondness, such love. 

The King brought him flowers, exquisitely beautiful creations without a single spider or thorn, and Gallain in turn brought back pretty blossoms he found while out on patrol. They made time to watch the sunset with each other, to gaze upon falling stars, and just share their lives. Pip wrote trite romantic letters, florid and overwrought that never failed to bring a smile to Gallain's lips, and Gallain replied with silly poetry he laboured far too long over.

They took things slowly.

Pip's birthday slid by and they don't celebrate the day his mother tried to kill him. They don't celebrate the twenty years that have passed since then. There's an unspoken agreement that this will be the night, but when the time comes, the strawberries are eaten, the wine drunk, the moment as perfect as can be, they just end up in bed together, entwined in each other's arms and other than some gentle caresses there's no consummation and nothing too sexual.

Gallain should be unsatisfied. It should be endlessly frustrating but instead he's just overwhelmed by a warmth of affection whenever he looks at Pip. They'll make things work. They've a whole lifetime to do so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mixtapestar I really, really hope you like this. I know it's not the porn with feelings. I tried to include some of your other wants though.
> 
> There's one vignette to go to wrap things up. 
> 
> Original title was Putting the Romance into Necromancy BUT somehow the necromancy stuff didn't end up being that prominent. Also cut was the specifics of Gallain's backstory and so many other vignettes. I'll probably come back and revise the last chapter for the deadline is nigh and I am asleep.


End file.
